VIOLENT SPIN ON THE HIGHWAY

The black sedan was cruising sedately. No one noticed it. It was just one among the large number of vehicles  on   M C Road, the State Highway. Onlookers were aghast when it gathered momentum. The thunder was scary.  People rushed in from all corners. They were horrified to find two badly shaken men and an unconscious woman in the vehicle. The woman was bleeding profusely. It was apparent that there had been  a vicious head injury.

Alice was a wonderful woman. She was in the college when I had first met her. There was a bus stop in front of my office. She would drop in and chat as she waited for the arrival of her bus. She had never disturbed me while I had been busy. She was a lively girl and what had stood out was her uninhibited laughter. She drifted like a butterfly. She had spread good cheer all around.

Marriage with Thankachan took her to Abu Dhabi. She was content to be a home maker. It was a happy family. The husband and the wife raised their two children – a son and a daughter – inculcating family values in them. The children did not let go the opportunities that came their way. They underwent courses in engineering and business management in premier institutes. As they were well qualified placements came in search of them.

Life in Abu Dhabi came to a conclusion when Thankachan superannuated. They built a house at Thiruvananthapuram for their stay in India. It was a beautiful house. It was self contained. Exquisite landscaping made it glamorous. Life in India was pleasant just as it had been at Abu Dhabi.

Disaster struck the happy family in a most bizarre mode.  There was the funeral of a dear one at Kottayam on 1^st November 2012. Though Thankachan had planned to take the train to attend the funeral Alice wanted to travel by their car –  Maruti SX4 – so that they could visit a few of their relatives and offer prayers in the Church at Parumala. The engagement of their daughter had been set for 12^th November at Thiruvananthapuram. Alice insisted that they take their driver along so that Thankachan would not be taxed.

They had set out from their home at 6 AM on 1^st November 2012. The driver drove at moderate speed. When they reached Kalayapuram near Kottarakkara, the driver suddenly accelerated to overtake a stationary school bus that was taking in students.  It went awry.  The car dashed against  the rear of the bus on the right. The collision had sent the car to several spins on the road. It was a frightening sight. The bystanders could do nothing. They had  felt that no one would come out alive.  As the driver and Thankachan  in the front seats had worn the seat belts and as the vehicle had air bags in  front they came out of the mishap unhurt.  Wearing of seat belts by passengers in the front seats of all cars in Kerala is mandatory. However it is not mandatory for passengers in the rear. Poor Alice who was sitting in the rear had not worn the seat belt as the law did not require it. The violent spin threw her repeatedly against the metal and the glass on her left. She was badly injured. There was blood.  Her head and her face wore the brunt of the spin. 

She was brought comatose to KIMS Hospital in Thiruvananthapuram  at once in an ambulance.  Though the Doctors had tried their best to resuscitate her she had succumbed to the injuries.  Thankachan was dumbfounded. He had hoped and believed that nothing untoward would happen to Alice while he had held her firm on the ride in the ambulance. One moment life was full of happiness. Tragedy had struck him mercilessly. Alice was laid to rest in the orthodox church’s cemetery at Pattoor on 3^rd November 2012.

The unexpected demise of Alice was a jolt to all who knew her. They could not believe that Alice would never come with her trademark smile to their lives again.

Accidents occur without any notice. Freak accidents occur rarely. A moment is enough to turn happiness to deep sorrow, agony,anguish and tragedy. Perhaps the tragedy could have been averted.if Alice had worn the seat belt while she had been traveling.

Citizens  are the invaluable assets of an emerging economy. Our supplication is that the tragic death of Alice opens the eyes of  lawmakers in Kerala   to mandate wearing of seat belts compulsory for all passengers in all vehicles in the state so that precious lives will not  needlessly be snuffed in future.

P T USHA SLAMS NEGATIVE MINDSET OF ATHLETES IN INDIA

Life is a great teacher. There is a way out of each and every crisis. We have to seek and find our own answers.  However there are people who refuse to learn from failure.  They blame all but themselves for the mess they alone are responsible. We can make a difference when we go beyond our strengths and outside our comfort zones. Though I am focusing on sports and sports-persons what is deliberated here applies to all spheres of life. 

I am an avid reader of the newspapers ‘The Hindu’ and ‘The Times of India’. I am quoting from them with a bit of my own thoughts.

P T Usha in ‘The Times of India’, 6^th July 2013 deliberates on why India has not produced a world class athlete in track and field events after she had called it a day.

“Today’s athletes stop at the first sign of pain”

Athletics is not easy. It is very tough on the body when you put in 100 percent effort.  Nowadays the athletes stop when they have the first sign of pain, whereas I used to continue training because I was trained to take the load. I was also mentally determined to always win. If our athletes have to win at the top level, we have to build them with a strong mindset right from when they are young.

“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains however impossible, must be the truth.” Sherlock Holmes

The truth is that Indians in general are averse to stretch that extra length and they end up non achievers whatever their pursuits are. It does not preclude the strides Indians have made in the world. But we tend to remain within our comfort zones shutting our eyes to the strenuous demands a real winner would have to cope up with. The lethargy has made us the second best every where.

Notice the approach elsewhere.

The Hindu, 6^th July 2013

Wimbledon Men’s Semi Final July 5 2013

Between Novak Djokovic and Juan Martin Del Porto

At 4 hours 44 minutes the match – that had more twists and turns than a giant cork screw - was the longest Semi Final in Wimbledon history. It was probably, as more than one expert commentator gushed, one of the finest in recent history of the game.

Together, the statistics showed that the match did not go along predicted lines. More importantly, they showed that both players were forced to play beyond their strengths and outside their comfort zones.

It was this more than anything else that made this wonderful match truly special and extra ordinary.

Believer is the achiever.  If you believe you can accomplish the goal you will achieve it.

‘The Hindu” wrote when Djokovic had lost early in his career to Federer in an epic battle.

Djokovic will go home knowing that Federer will be thinking of him, and while disappointed, the Serb should remember that defeat is a great teacher, an idea articulated beautifully in an old Michael Jordan advertisement.

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career; I’ve lost almost 300 games; 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot, and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again. That is why I succeed.”

Any one can be a good winner. The sign of a great man is how you handle defeat.

Michael Jordan incidentally had not been selected to play for his School’s Basketball team when he was young.

The message is clear. It captures beautifully how we can win wherever we are.

When you have serenity within you while under tremendous stress, when you have a reserve supply of confidence when everything seems lost you will have clarity – clarity in the mind - 
amid-st the inferno. You are able to make winning decisions. The quality makes you unique, makes you a winner and makes you a champion. 

Mind you, champions are a rare breed.

FRIENDS HAVE TO BE NURTURED FOR YEARS

Shoumojit Banerjee, correspondent of'  ' The Hindu '  reports from Mumbai. ( ' The Hindu ' of 25.06.2013)

Mr.Uddhav Thackeray, President, Shiv Sena wrote in Saamana , "Allies do not grow on trees. Friends have to be nurtured for years with trust and service. They are not like seasonal crops which can be grown with water and fertilizers and then be plucked for use."

Mr. Thackeray has stated a wonderful principle that is often ignored by most of us. No one can survive in the world without friends. Unfortunately people think that their riches will be enough to see them through their travails. The wise follows the principle exhorted  and lead successful lives.

C. A. Chacko  who had struggled  through the horrors of  Second World War while he was at Singapore had found solace from the following quotation. (Author unknown)

" Riches take wings
  Comfort vanish
  Hope withers away
  But love stays with us "

REMORSELESS KILLER ON THE PROWL

.

Shajan spoke to me today. He said that Jolly is fighting her best to live. She is in the Hospital. She cannot swallow food in the form of solids or liquids. She throws up.  Doctors have prescribed nasal feeding to stabilize her. 

Jolly suffers from cancer.

We had visited her the previous Wednesday. She was on morphine. We could see that she was enduring great pain. We had felt that she could not go on for long. We did feel that death was waiting in front of her to snatch her away.   The pity of it was that her doctors did not prepare the family for the inevitable that was very close. They were fed with false hopes.

It has been three years since the family took cancer head on. Jolly had to undergo mastectomy. Radiation and Chemotherapy followed. It was painful. It was expensive. Shajan was employed. Jolly was a homemaker. They have two children, a boy and a girl. The girl was eighteen  when cancer had gate  crashed into their peaceful world. The boy was only a child at that time. The family was never rich.

Though Jolly showed signs of recovery there was a relapse. The cancer started to make inroads into her body. Her condition at the moment is quite unstable. She cannot lie on her bed. She cannot sleep. She cannot sit. She cannot walk. She cannot stand as her legs are swollen.  She cannot speak.

Shajan asked me to pray for Jolly. He said his daughter who is twenty one  has already lived the life of a forty year old. The last three years were cruel to her. She had to balance her life with different chores. She had to attend  college. She had to write her exams. She had to do the cooking at home. She had to attend to her mother. She had to spend a good part of the three years in the hospital as Jolly had to be admitted  there many times.

Shajan tells me that his son had cried his heart out when he saw his mother at the hospital with the nasal tube. A child takes time to assimilate. 

Shajan was weeping when he was on the phone. He recalled what he had been through his whole life. I needed no reminder as I knew it all. He said it was only in the year 2001 he was able to find a good job. It had been horrible till then.  He says he had started to live a good life from that year only. The good fortune did not last even for a decade.

Shajan does not know what to do. Despite all that he has done with the limited resources he could marshal he knows Jolly’s condition is critical.

Cancer is deadly. It destroys the person. It destroys the family. Cancer, the remorseless killer on the prowl, is the worst enemy of mankind.

Prayer alone can bring solace to the lives of Shajan, Jolly and their children. They seek the prayers of the whole world for the survival and well being of Jolly.

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I wrote this yesterday, the 11th of June,2013.

I woke up this morning with dark forebodings. It is 12th June,2013.

Jolly passed away at 7.10 AM today. It is tragic for the family. The loss is irreplaceable. Shajan has lost his wife and the children their dear mother.

Jolly was a good soul. True to her name she had always been jovial. She had an indomitable spirit.

UNIDENTIFIED BAGGAGE AT HYDERABAD - SHAMSHABAD RAJIV GANDHI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

It was the day after the twin blasts at Dilsukhnagar, Hyderabad. We were scheduled to board a flight from RGIA, Shamshabad.at 2.55 PM on 22^nd February 2013.  As we drove into the enclosure for departure it was evident that security had been beefed up. Documents of passengers were closely scrutinized by two security personnel before they were let in.

The terminal was crowded. Security arrangements were flawless. Though unobtrusive the security personnel were doing a great job.   We went for check in one hour before the flight.  There were several counters marked ‘all flights’.  There was a long queue at the first counter. The second and third counters were unmanned. Boarding passes were being issued from all the counters. When we spotted an official taking his seat at the third counter, my wife went there with our documents while I had kept my place in the queue at the first counter. The trolley with our baggage was with me. The official directed her to stick to the first counter. Meanwhile another official took up his seat at the second counter. As my wife was returning to join the queue along with me, the official asked her to present the documents. She waited at the counter while the official verified the records.

I saw an official in uniform making his rounds. He spotted a bag behind my wife. He went around asking everyone if it belonged to them. No one knew anything about it. It was unclaimed. The processing of our documents was over by that time.  The official asked us to deposit our check in baggage at the conveyer belt. I moved the trolley up to the counter and had deposited the baggage there. The trolley was inches away from the unclaimed bag.

As we waited there for our boarding pass a security official came up to me and politely asked me to move far away from that area with the trolley. While complying with his order I told him that we had not been issued our boarding passes. Noting our plight he advised me to wait outside the cordon where the passengers were meant to queue up. My wife waited at the counter for the boarding pass since she was not ordered out of the area.

As I was moving out of the area I saw security personnel converging there in strength. The unclaimed bag was cordoned off within seconds. The passengers queuing there were evacuated. They asked my wife to proceed to the spot where I waited. The officials at the first three counters were ordered to close the counters and vacate at once. Nothing was left to chance.

Time was ticking away. We wondered how we would board the aircraft without the boarding pass. The official did not abandon us. He sought us out and handed over the boarding passes and wished us bon voyage.

We went through the security check and waited for the call to board the aircraft. There were three more verifications before we could settle down into our seats.

The flight took of right on dot. As we were flying realization dawned on us that we were closest to the unidentified bag and if anything had gone wrong we would not have lived to tell the tale. We really admired the security personnel for their professionalism. They were courteous. They never had tried to put a scare into people though they were battling against heavy odds. They were unassuming. They kept us safe.

They remain unknown. 

SALUTE KESAVENDRAKUMAR IAS

Kesavendrakumar was unknown when grew up in his native Bihar. Bihar happens to be the most underdeveloped state in India. It is rich in mineral wealth. A large number of major industries are located there. Yet, the people remained poor. Try as much as they could they found it extremely difficult to catch up with the rest of India. Parity in achievements in the field of education could never be conceived.

Kesavendrakumar grew up in a difficult environment. His father did not have much to provide for his son. But Kesavendrakumar was highly intelligent. He passed the Higher Secondary Examination, Bihar with a very high rank. Though he wanted to join for higher education the plight of the family made him join the Railways as a booking clerk (information garnered from newspaper reports).

The thirst for knowledge and the urge to do well in life saw him join IGNOU for BA Hindi. After successful completion of the degree he had appeared for the IAS examination. He was selected to join the IAS. The rank was forty five. It was the first time in India a degree student from IGNOU had been selected for IAS. He was twenty two. It tells us the universal truth. If you are tenacious, if you do not give up when the odds are stacked against you and if you believe you can win nothing can stop you.

Kesavendrakumar was posted to Kerala. In course of time he was appointed Director, Higher Secondary Education. He became famous when a few members of the student wing of the ruling party in Kerala had poured waste oil, black in color over him as a mark of protest for the hike in fees for Higher Secondary Education. The fact that the hike was a decision of the Government of which their party was a constituent did not deter the hooligans. The ruling party had dissociated themselves from the unethical violence. The Chief Minister had called up the official and had apologized for the misdeed.

The photo of Kesavendrakumar with the oil on him was widely circulated in the newspapers and news channels.There was no rancor. He looked courageous.

Salute Kesavendrakumar.

. 

KASHMIR – AN UNFORGETTABLE TOUR

We had always been looking for an opportunity to visit Kashmir. When a tour package came our way with two days in Srinagar we had gleefully joined it. We knew that confining the visit to Srinagar would not divulge what the entire Kashmir had in store for an admirer of nature.  But our constraints forced us to keep aside the venture beyond Srinagar   for another occasion.  

It was September 2009. We were required to report at the Domestic Terminal of the Trivandrum Airport at 5.30 AM. The flight had been scheduled to take off at 6.30 AM. We had set off from our residence at 5.00 AM. It was fifteen minutes’ drive to the Airport.  When heavy rains lashed the city the previous evening we felt nature had finally relented and had blessed Trivandrum with much needed succor. The rain had continued unabated the whole night. We reached Sanghumugham in fifteen minutes.  We could not proceed further as a traffic snag had developed blocking movement of vehicles. The discomfiture was compounded by the phenomenal stupidity of the malayali driver on the roads in Kerala that converts a two lane track to multiple tracks impeding all traffic to the nth degree. As we waited there patiently, we saw  minutes ticking by at a furious pace. We could have reached the Airport in fifteen minutes if we had chosen to walk. But we could not do it as the rains were merciless.  And we could not abandon the heavy baggage, an essential ingredient of all tours.

It was five minutes to 6.00 AM when our son finally managed to drop us at the departure gate. The staff of Air India was courteous. Check in had been extended by half an hour considering the plight of the passengers braving the inclement weather to catch the flight to New Delhi. The hold up delayed the departure by half an hour. 

The aircraft flew on top of the clouds. The flight was pleasant. The view was magnificent. We had always been eagerly waiting for the breathtaking view whenever aboard as the bird soared higher and higher.

Though we reached New Delhi in time the aircraft did not receive permission to land. We could see from the screen in front that we were going up to Jaipur and then back to Agra. The aircraft had to spend almost an hour in the air till it was permitted to touch down.  The Commander was apologetic for the delay. He said there were a lot of VIP activities at the Airport that had forced us to remain airborne. It was the day the Helicopter carrying YSR, the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh went missing. We found the TV flashing the news in the evening after we reached Srinagar.   The air hostess while signing off advised passengers proceeding to Srinagar to contact the commercial staff at the Tarmac. The staff told us that the same aircraft would be flying us to Srinagar. As the flight to Srinagar had already been delayed it would be futile to proceed to the terminal and return.

The aerial view of Srinagar was fantastic. Mountain ranges stood high and majestic around the valley. There was a strong presence of the Indian Air Force at the Airport. It was all green from the sky. The terminal was full of Army and Air Force personnel waiting for their flights. We were allowed to exit after an examination for bird flu.

We proceeded in a Taxi to our Hotel. Later when we went out to visit places of importance in Srinagar we could see that the Army was everywhere in full battle gear. We were frisked at some places.  At one point after the frisking was over we were asked to proceed on foot for some distance. The vehicle was allowed to move slowly and picked us up after we had covered the mandated distance. There was a long stretch of a road. It was heavily fortified. A few Ambulances were also there. The driver told us that several VIPs had their residences on either side of the road. He advised us it would be unsafe if were venturing out after 10.00 PM. We replied we could not do it as we could not withstand the cold weather. The driver further told us that the roads in Kashmir were superbly maintained in comparison with roads across the line of control.

Our visit to the shops was a revealing experience. The shopkeepers were cordial and courteous. The fact that we were from the southern tip of the subcontinent had amused them. They offered us Safron Tea.  It tasted excellent.

Shalimar Gardens was a display of colours. We had never seen such flowers and trees elsewhere. Buildings from Mughal era adorned it.

Chinar trees lined up on the road skirting the Dal Lake. The House Boats in the lake were a treat. Though we had planned a Shikara ride the next day, incessant rains during the night and the morning prevented us.

It was time for us to leave Srinagar. The vehicle was stopped at a check point on our return to the airport. We were asked to show our tickets and the baggage was sent for scanning. Though we thought we had reached the Airport we were told there was some more distance to the destination. The baggage had to be reloaded in our vehicle.  As we moved on we had to negotiate a zig zag path to reach the airport. There was scanning once again before the check in.

The flight was on time. As we were bidding good bye to the magnificence the mountains and the valley had offered the aircraft encountered turbulence. It was scary.  We were asked to put on  seat belts. The aircraft began to shake. The captain ordered, ”Crew to stations.” An Air Hostess who was serving lunch found it difficult to control the trolley. Cups and bottles were flying off.. She jumped into a seat next to ours and fastened the seat belts. She held on to the trolley as she sat there. Finding that we were scared she assured that the turbulence would be over soon. There was pin drop silence in the cabin.

The captain managed to steer the aircraft safe. The seat belt sign went off. The Air Hostess went on with her chores. It was a big relief when the announcement came that we were about to land at the New Delhi International Airport.

Our next stop was Colombo. As our onward flight had been scheduled for the next day, we were provided accommodation at ‘Tamarind’, half an hour from the airport. Sri Lanka was fighting the LTTE at that time. We saw young soldiers with advanced weapons everywhere. The next morning as we were returning to the airport to catch our flight, Gun wielding soldiers stopped our vehicle and would not allow us to proceed. They demanded production of Passports and travel documents. They took a long time over it. Finally they allowed us to proceed through a different route. The journey took more than an hour. We heaved a sigh of relief when we managed to catch the flight.